Cultural representations in foreign language teaching: A critique of four BBC courses

Since the introduction of communicative language teaching methods, many foreign language courses are designed explicitly to equip the tourist to ‘get by’ in the target language in typical touristic situations. On account of this instrumentalist approach, communicative courses have been able to incorporate a lot of authentic language materials, much more so than the earlier audio-visual courses. However, the focus on tourism has made them vulnerable to stereotyping, both of the learners and the target culture. The paper examines four well-known BBC foreign language courses, Deutsch Direkt!, A Vous la France!, Viva España, and Buongiorno Italia! from this point of view, and finds the presentation of cultural materials in them to be unrealistic. Moreover, the lack of realism differs in degree and type from course to course, in accordance with accepted British stereotypes of the countries in question. The paper concludes with suggestions and guidelines for the presentation of cultural content in language courses, and makes the case that influential national services, such as the BBC, should envisage a more diverse class of learners for its language courses, and should aim to give them a more complete account of the culture associated with the target language

Revista de educación

Este artículo se incluye en el monográfico 'Bilingüismo y educación'. Resumen basado en el del autorSe examinan cómo las políticas y prácticas educativas reflejan los objetivos de los gobierno en cuanto a la construcción de naciones. En particular, se examina el destino de las minorías lingüísticas en cuanto a su reconocimento en los sistemas educativos nacionales en el caso de naciones como España, ya que la existencia de comunidades minoritarias dentro del terreno nacional ha constituído un reto constante para la creación de un Estado-nación homogéneo. Primero se analizan los asuntos más generales relacionados con la lengua y la educación en sociedades multilingües y en particular, el poder de la lengua en los sistemas educativos así como modelos de educación bilingüe, y sus objetivos y logros.MadridBiblioteca de Educación del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; Calle San Agustín, 5 - 3 Planta; 28014 Madrid; Tel. +34917748000; [email protected]

The teaching of Catalan in Catalonia

One of the greatest challenges the language planners in Catalonia face in their drive to promote Catalan to an equal status with Castilian is that of teaching the language to the large non-Catalan population now found in Catalonia. This paper examines the provision of Catalan and the use of Catalan as a medium in Catalonia's education system at all levels. A new legal framework has allowed the local Catalan government considerable scope to upgrade the teaching of Catalan. Whether resources and the support from the community are sufficient, and whether the policy favours Catalan aggressively enough to prevent Castilian remaining always the dominant partner are discussed